Highway 400 reopened after massive 96-car pileup near Barrie caused by snow squall shut it down for most of day

Police have cleared the “disturbing” scene of a massive 96-vehicle pileup that shut down a 15-kilometre stretch of a major Toronto-area highway Thursday.

At least three people were injured in the crash shortly after 9 a.m when a snow squall brought dangerous whiteout conditions to the region. Hundreds more were stranded in the frigid cold for hours after the collision in Innisfil, just south of Barrie.

Police closed Highway 400 in both directions between Highway 89 and Mapleview Drive after a multi-vehicle collision blocked the southbound lane. Police cleared the vehicles away by late afternoon, but had to wait for the highway to be plowed and salted before reopening it Thursday night.

“It was a very disturbing sight,” Jeremy Gaudet said. “It’s the worst accident I’ve seen in 12 years.”

The 34-year-old travelling salesman was heading to London from Orillia when he stopped about 10 vehicles behind the huge crash. He was lucky enough not to collide with any of the cars, but he was still stuck on the highway for more than three hours.

Police cut away large sections of the guardrail — about 10 metres — so that emergency vehicles, people and cars could move from the southbound side of the highway to the northbound side. Gaudet said about 200 cars were still stranded when police let him drive away shortly after 12 p.m. By 4 p.m. all the vehicles had been cleared away, police said.

Police set up warming buses for people whose cars ran out of gas. And anyone who couldn’t drive away from the crash was loaded onto Barrie city buses and taken to OLG Slots at Georgian Downs where police had set up an OPP collision centre.

“It looks like they’ve got a million tow trucks on scene,” Sgt.Leon told the Barrie Examiner.

A lot of the vehicles are severely damaged, Sgt. Woodford said.

But only three people were sent to hospital with non life-threatening injuries, he said.

There is no official cause for the accident yet, but Sgt. Woodford said the massive snow squall that blew through the region was likely to blame. It came on quickly and moved into the region off Lake Huron and Georgian Bay leading to near whiteout conditions on the highway.

“There’s a cold front that’s moving across the area and literally there’s a wall of snow that has just come down across that entire area. It’s pushing southwards,” Sgt. Leon told the Barrie Examiner. “Any area adjacent to open fields are being severely impacted right now.”

Across southwestern Ontario, provincial police reported several highway closures, including a shutdown of Highway 402 in Middlesex County and Highway 401 in both directions in Oxford County.

“My understanding is the cold front is the leading edge of what’s going to switch the winds around and cause the squall activity to increase as the day goes on,” Sgt. Leon said.

“They’re describing it. . .as a storm front moving through, like a severe thunderstorm moving through, it’s just coming across and going down. Unfortunately it’s impacting a very, very significant area right now and there’s supposed to be snow squalls kicking up this afternoon and right into tomorrow as well.”